William Carrigan

William Carrigan

“A Profound Difference”: William Carrigan (1999) Remembers Gary Hunter -- Memory #51 of 100

Today’s Project 100 memory comes from the editor of the series!  It is a true pleasure to share this memory of my late colleague, Gary Hunter.  Born in Waco, Texas, I grew up outside of the city in a small place called Chalk Bluff.   The family business was Cedarwood Stables.  We grew hay (and oats and corn at one time) and boarded horses, taught lessons, and hosted a number of equestrian events every year.   My parents and grandmother had jobs off the farm at various times as well.  My younger brother and I helped out on the farm from our earliest memories and continued to help on weekends even after leaving home for college.  I attended public schools until my junior year of high school, when I transferred to a private school, graduating in 1989.   I then attended the University of Texas at Austin where I majored in history (after beginning as an engineering major).  Upon graduating, I attended Emory University where I earned my MA and PhD in American history.  My dissertation focused on the question, “why did ordinary people lynch?”  My revised dissertation became my first book, The Making of a Lynching Culture:  Violence and Vigilantism in Central Texas, 1836-1916 (University of Illinois Press, 2004).  My subsequent research has continued to explore the history of lynching, with my most well-known book being co-authored with Clive Webb and entitled Forgotten Dead:  Mob Violence against Mexicans in the United States, 1848-1928 (Oxford University Press, 2013).  In 1999, I joined the faculty in the Department of History at Rowan where I have taught United States history surveys, required seminars, and upper level undergraduate and graduate courses in subjects such as the Civil War and Reconstruction, United States Labor History, the American West, and the history of New Jersey.  I have loved being part of the Department of History, which is filled with truly delightful colleagues, as well as the larger Rowan community.  I have tried to help as many students as possible to reach their fullest potential.    

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Growing up in central Texas, I did not imagine that I would become a college professor, and I certainly never thought that I would end up spending so much of my adult life thinking about issues of race and ethnicity.  On this unexpected road, several people made a critical difference and one of them was Gary Hunter. 

I joined Rowan University in the Fall of 1999.  Gary and Lee Kress were the first two people I met from Rowan, as they both interviewed me at the American Historical Association annual meeting in January of 1999.  Gary and Lee both served as mentors, and I owe them both so much.  I could say much about Lee, who was appointed my official mentor by the Department. I will say that he was supportive of me from the outset even when some of my youthful enthusiasm probably could have been better restrained.  In any event, I hope that my actions in helping to raise money for the scholarship that will bear his name speaks for my deep appreciation for all that he did for me.  I could share so much about the rest of my wonderful colleagues, and I probably should give a brief special mention to Denise Williams who has been a source of both help and humor since the very beginning, but I want to focus the rest of this memory on Gary. 

By the time that I was hired at Rowan, Gary had been at Rowan for a quarter-century and had just finished multiple terms as chair of the Department.  He was focused on finishing up his long-term research project on African Americans and southern New Jersey and happy to pass leadership on to a new generation of faculty such as his successor Edward Wang.  Yet, he was still involved outside of the classroom with students, particularly students of color.  In one memorable conversation, he discussed why he had never pursued jobs at other universities (he would have been a strong candidate for other jobs, especially early in his career).  He argued that he believed that he had made a more profound difference on the lives of students at Glassboro State and at Rowan than he could have had a more prestigious university.  The dedicated, smart, talented, and self-confident students who enrolled at those schools, he argued, would do fine in life without him.  Students at Rowan, he noted, needed more mentorship.  College was unfamiliar to many of them, as they rarely had any family members possessing a college degree.  They often knew little of their own academic potential having never pushed themselves in that area before.  Their futures, he argued, could very much be shaped by faculty who knew how to simultaneously nurture and push at the same time.  The conversation had a deep influence on me, and I have tried to live up to Gary’s model in the years since.

Gary observed me teach and gave me many comments that helped me improve in the classroom.  One of the conversations that made a deep impact involved Reconstruction.  After hearing that I found the students much more interested in the Civil War years than the Reconstruction years in my course, Gary shared with me his own thoughts on Reconstruction. As a descendant of enslaved people, he began by noting that nothing could ever be done that would allow him to forgive those that had enslaved his ancestors.  He continued, however, by noting that he understood that slavery was a tricky issue, one that had been inherited by those who formed the United States.  He reminded me that slavery had existed since ancient times and in all parts of the world.  While he believed that the United States committed a great moral and political error by not ending slavery earlier, he understood why the matter had been so hard to solve.  For him, slavery was not the unforgivable original sin of the United States.  Gary said that the great betrayal of African Americans took place during Reconstruction.  Having finally lived up to their ideals in the early years of Reconstruction with the extension of equal rights to African Americans, the United States then allowed those rights to be taken away and to be replaced by decades of lynching, segregation, and second-class citizenship.  The consequences of Reconstruction, he argued, continued to hang over the modern United States.  Not only did this conversation prompt me to write new and improved lectures on the period after 1865, but it often returns to my mind as current events demonstrate our nation’s continued struggle with issues of race and ethnicity. 

It was terribly sad for many of us when Gary died in a car accident on May 12, 2003.  It took twelve years, but one of my proudest accomplishments at Rowan was being part of the group that edited and finally got Gary’s book manuscript, Neighborhoods of Color: African American Communities in Southern New Jersey, 1638-2000, published and available for free to local residents, teachers, and students.  The print run of 1,000 copies is mostly gone at this stage, but there are still some copies available for any alums who wish to have a copy.  Simply email me, and I will reserve a copy for you.

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This is part of the Department of History’s “Project 100,” the collection and sharing of one hundred memories by Glassboro State College and Rowan University alumni and staff in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the founding of Glassboro Normal School, later Glassboro State College, and now Rowan University.